``It's an amazing collection, it's difficult to get these recordings now,'' says Vice-Chancellor Anil Kane. The 300-odd tapes were tucked away in an obscure corner of the Faculty of Performing Arts for almost 35 years.``Since many people are interested in them, and since we have the funds, we decided to use the money to preserve the treasure,'' he adds.

When Kane talks of the ``treasure'', he is also referring to several musical instruments gathering dust at the Performing Arts faculty for half-a-century. Among them are a tanpura used by Faiyaz Khan, a 100-year-old rudraveena, a rare vichitra-veena, a snake-shaped trumpet, a variety of flutes and a set of tablas used by Khan'saccompanist. Not surprisingly, none of these are in impeccable condition. But MSU is gearing up to deal with that. ``We have already sought expert opinion on how to transfer these recordings to hard discs,'' says Kane. ``With great difficulty, we've also found a machine where these spool tapes can be played.''

Narendra Shrimali and Performing Arts dean D Bhonsle -- two of the many experts consulted for the project have also identified a shop that can make the instruments usable. ``They can be repaired so that they can be used for demonstrations,'' says Bhonsle.

Kane also has plans to set up a museum of the turn-of-the-century instruments. For once, the university does not apprehend the plans going haywire for want of money: The revival project is being funded by the Campus Diversity Programme. Besides, if anyone's interested, Kane says MSU is ready to part with the copyright to the old recordings. ``But we'll keep the master copy,'' he adds.